


No Light No Light (In Your Bright Blue Eyes)

by Anonymississippi



Series: I'm Not Gonna Write You a Love Song [2]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Codependency, F/F, Future AU, Survivor's story, lawstein - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 08:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3113222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't choose what stays and what fades away.</p><p>Danny Lawrence tied herself to Silas many years ago. She's the guardian. And Carmilla (even after the battle) could never give up on the place entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the same universe as Stay with Me. I'd suggest reading that (or at least the final chapter) prior to this. 
> 
> Cheers!

“You know what they say, right? How it always starts?” Andrew asked.

He took a final slurp of beer, then crushed his empty can.

The group of architecture majors shrunk in on themselves like rollie-pollie bugs, curled spines leaning toward the bonfire, toward the speaker. Temperatures were low but spirits soared, done with first semester finals; done with awkward semi-introductions and pseudo-relationships; done with running in a terrorized fright from submerged beings of demonic inclination, set upon the university with little regard for Silas’s draconian stance on academic forgiveness.

“How does it start? Dr. Corman never told us anything!” Taylor asked.

“You know it’s gonna be a bad semester if the cat shows back up,” Andrew answered.

“The cat? What the hell are you talking about, McGrath?”

“Well, it's more of a panther, really. When the cat shows up, that’s when everybody starts seeing the guardian,” Andrew said. “The protector of Silas. Like I said on the first day of class, remember? The hauntings?”

“Come on, you don’t believe that superstition, do you Andy?”

Andrew McGrath turned toward the redhead sat primly against an overturned log. She was just as big as he was, but bigger… _more_ , in some unspeakable way. Yet none in the cluster of celebratory students could pinpoint the quality Adeline possessed that made her so… _excessive_? That teaching assistantship she got for Corman’s classes highlighted some peculiar aura of authority that already seemed intrinsic. Andrew shrugged it off and continued with his story. He chocked it all up to Adeline being a super senior. After all, one doesn’t hang around Silas for as long as she has without learning a thing or twelve.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I consider myself a fair professor as far as grading and attendance is concerned. As you can see from the syllabus, I don’t accept late work without a valid excuse,” Dr. Corman flipped the sheet over and scanned the following page. “I’m talking death in the family, in which case, I’ll need a copy of the obituary. Severe illness, but in truth, the apothecary—”

“Infirmary, professor,” Danny said.

“Infirmary, should have whatever potion—”

“—medicine.”

“—medicine, elixir, antidote, poultice, etc., at the ready,” Dr. Corman finished with a careless hand wave.

“Sir?” a brave freshman (or maybe an obnoxious one, Danny had yet to form an opinion) raised his hand deferentially.

“Yes, Mr.—”

“McGrath, sir. Andrew. I was just—I mean, can you tell us anything more about the hauntings at midterms?”

The class stirred, as if a switch had been flipped over the blob of disinterest. All eyes gravitated toward the professor. Syllabus day excitement, like metallic filaments honing in on the magnetized point and suctioned toward the center lodestone.

“Hauntings?” one girl squeaked.

“What the hell?”

“Like, ghosts?” another guy asked.

“Does this mean extensions?”

“Extensions? I’m talking _exemptions_.”

“Everyone, settle down,” Danny spoke over the mumbles, clear and strong. “Chill out, and listen up.”

“Yes, please control yourselves. Now,” Dr. Corman removed his rounded glasses and rested heavily on his elbows. He was a crotchety elder on the verge of retirement, an animated grotesque of tweed and patchy whiskers hanging off the podium at the front of the lecture theatre.

Danny wasn’t entirely sure Dr. Corman wasn’t some gargoyle in disguise. He specialized in the architecture of the Holy Roman Empire, which would explain all of those chiseling tools and egg-dart moldings in his office. It didn’t explain his immobility come sunrise and his affinity for night class, or the fact that he drooled a bit out of the corner of his lip.

Dr. Corman paid no heed to Danny’s careful scrutiny and continued magnanimously:

“As to the supposed ‘hauntings’ that were covered in your orientation seminar, rest assured that no such nonsense has happened since I’ve been teaching here. Those rumors of overaggressive fly-traps in the greenhouse and some preposterous merfolk uprising against the rowing team are wild and outlandish stories told to unassuming freshman for shock value alone.”

“Well, how long have you been teaching here?” McGrath countered.

Obnoxious, Danny decided.

“Longer than you’ve been alive, Mr. McGrath, so please, if we could get back to the matter at hand.”

“Oh, but Professor? Just one more question?”

The inquiry came from a scratchy-toned alto in the topmost corner of the lecture theatre. Why any student would choose to sit in the one spot with the wonky light panel maintenance had yet to change, Danny would never figure. But then again, she’d seen her fair share of student eccentricities over her years—decades—centuries?—at Silas.

“What about the rumors of the Silas guardian? You know, all those first-hand sightings whenever anything… _strange_ crops up on these hallowed grounds.”

Dr. Corman heaved another long-suffering sigh.

“Miss…?”

“Countess.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused, Professor,” the dark haired girl said. A handful of amused snickers and a chorus of scandalized gasps underscored the cheeky response.

“Your surname please,” Corman requested.

Danny rolled her eyes and dared to hope simultaneously.

“Karnstein,” Carmilla replied.

“Well, Miss Karnstein, I’m sure the guardian you speak of will appear should any so-called ‘hauntings’ occur. Your question seems to cancel out Mr. McGrath’s. So please, class, if we could return to the guidelines for portal submission of assignments and the matrix checker for plagiarism?”

“Sir, we need to review the new 5-D submissions specs for final projects with the Elemental software,” Danny reminded gently. “Run down the mid-term hologram presentations checklist.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Dr. Corman dropped his voice, turned to Danny. “I might let you handle that one. They keep updating these versions, and I haven’t familiarized myself with the newest release. Could you—?”

“Sure,” Danny said, rising.

“Class,” Dr. Corman spoke again, rasping over a throat Danny suspected was carved from sedimentary rock. “This is Adeline Wrenlace, the TA for the Introductory Technical Drafting workshop and your Architectural History courses. She’s going to explain the Silas Ethernet submission portal specifications.”

Danny pushed her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose and puffed against a lock of hair that seemed determined to cover her left eye. She’d forgotten how tiring bangs could be.

“Hey, everybody. You guys can call me Addy. All the technological specifications for submitting projects can be a little overwhelming at first, but that’s what I’m here for. To make Silas a bit easier on you.”

Danny couldn’t be sure, but she thought she heard a bloody chuckle rumble down from the darkest corner of the lecture theatre.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Danny hung back after Corman fled the room, mind-boggled students tottering after him and rushing into the corridors with open campus maps of varying complexities. Their bodies moved about on the screen overlays flashing across their pupils, the mobile ‘you are here’ dots zigzagging atop the microdigitized maps projected on a paper-thin contact lens.

Danny could hardly fathom the students’ confusion. Silas wasn’t that big. She should know. She’d hiked every spare inch of it several times over.

“So… Adeline, huh?” Carmilla drawled, her voice laced with bourbon and sex.

Danny crossed her booted ankles and sat atop the desk at the front of the lecture theatre. She shrugged in response, tugged at the band near the bottom of her rose cardigan and quelled the urge to embrace the dead. Her calf-length skirt swished as she swung her ankles. The chunky bracelet on her wrist felt heavy and inhibiting. The pastels weren’t bad for her palette, just novel. Like a regenerated skin that hadn’t quite stretched into place yet. The loose bun she’d flung her hair into that morning felt sloppy and unsophisticated, cutesy and overly juvenile.

Everything felt wrong.

Discombobulated.

Carmilla’s scrutiny could do that to a person.

The dagger strapped to her thigh was her only source of familiarity. Of comfort. She repressed all she had learned in her psychology courses about placing too much faith in objects. In tools. Instilling objects with characteristics, with sentient status, paved the way for denigrating personhood. People were not objects. People were not tools. People were not a means to an end.

Danny was forever grasping at the edges of her humanity.

“Addy, this time,” Danny answered.

“I prefer Adeline. It’s rather old world. Though Addy seems more… you.”

“Yeah well, you’d think there’d be a better anagram generator at this point in history.”

Carmilla’s eyes narrowed to slits and she pursed her lips. “What year is it?”

“It’s… no, damn, where’d I put that calendar?” Danny floundered about, digging through a handcrafted tote where she’d stored all of her theory books. She flicked through title after title, relishing the feel of paper and spine and hard-backed cover beneath her callused fingers. None of this ‘intangible information’ nonsense the students used nowadays.

‘Book’ as word and object verged on extinction.

“Does it really matter?” Danny asked.

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. But what’s with this get-up?” Carmilla asked, inclining her head toward Danny’s person. “It’s rather… subdued. Almost—” Carmilla blanched, adding to her pallor. “—June Cleaver-esque.”

Danny had cobbled together the persona at the last minute, as soon as the scrying crystals had vibrated over points north of the Old Lustig cavern. The charmed quartz had quivered and fractured, crumbled into a fine powder from the forewarning tremors rippling over the grounds.

“I supposedly ‘graduated’ with a master’s in astrophysics two years ago. My old self. Uhm, I mean, one of my old… selves, that was closer to my original… self,” Danny explained poorly. She gestured awkwardly to her frame. “I needed to pull a complete one-eighty. As incognito as I could go with my limited resources. So, Adeline Wrenlace likes hot tea with ginger and lemon. Cross-stitching. Can’t swim. Hasn’t hiked a mile in her life, and thinks coffee is a debilitating drug. Probably recoils at dirt. She, uh, _crafts_ ,” Danny said with disgust.

“So you pull the hair up, add the glasses, and affect another accent? Play at being demure?”

“I know, it’s pretty bad,” Danny grinned. “I learned from the worst.”

Carmilla grunted, then hopped up on the desk beside her.

“I imagined you’d be angrier,” Carmilla ventured.

“Huh?”

“With me. We didn’t exactly part on good terms.”

“There were no terms,” Danny stopped, staring down at her books. “You just left.”

“Which is why I find myself confounded by your rather passive response to my presence.”

Danny picked at a grainy wooden splinter on the desk and sighed. “I’m tired of being angry with you. I’ve spent the majority of my lifespan being resentful, being mad at you. I’m tired of being afraid that you’re not gonna come back, so can’t you just let me enjoy the decent parts of you for as long as you decide to stick around?”

“So you enjoy my company?” Carmilla arched a goading brow.

“I don’t enjoy you fishing for compliments, since we’ve already been through this,” Danny ran an agitated hand over the short curtain of bangs she’d hacked away at two mornings previously. She popped the plastic button at the neck of her peach blouse and gulped air like a breaching diver. The noose that had been choking her all through class slipped a bit looser.

“It’s not really you I’m happy to see, anyway,” Danny said with a smirk. “Just that I’m glad I don’t have to pretend as much anymore. It’s a load, you know?”

“Yes. I’m intimately familiar with the burden. The anchor. It’s… uncomfortable.”

“You felt the stirrings?” Danny asked, not looking at the vampire.

“Sure,” she responded, trailing a dark nail over the stitched stars on Danny’s bag. “Couldn’t let you have all the fun, huh, Gingersnap?”

Danny smiled again. It felt nice to smile, to let an old nickname take her back, back, and back once more. Despite her initial distaste for it, ‘Gingersnap’ had grown on her.

Just like Carmilla.

“I didn’t think you were coming back. Not after the last…Well, I never got to thank you,” Danny mumbled. “I knew that amount of healing would take time, but I didn’t even need the crutches anymore, after you left. I was only using the cane for a few weeks. But I’m good as new, now. I can run, and jump, and climb pretty good. Back to the whole ‘warrior princess’ shtick you liked so much on our… not quite adventures. Jobs, I guess. All those times we saved this place, and you’d twist your ankle, or I’d break a bone. I mean, we were always pretty good about taking care of each other, but I never expected you to—I mean, there’s no way I’d have let you push me around in that chair forever. Even if I’d stayed paralyzed.”

Carmilla gurgled a reply, an agreement, a negative, a harrumph. Throaty and noncommittal.

It had taken her decades, but Danny was finally fluent in Snark, Dead Girl’s preferred tongue.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Danny whispered. “I shouldn’t have put that responsibility on you. You never asked for it. It wasn’t worth… uhm, the…” Danny’s brows converged, a single, ruddy caterpillar of concentration set into barely-there wrinkles on a forehead. “…four years?”

“Five years, two months, seventeen days,” Carmilla corrected.

“I hope you don’t resent me for it,” Danny said with a sad chuckle. “Who’da thunk IV lines and heart monitors and wheelchairs would frighten you more than Serewoods and cannibalistic goblins?”

Carmilla hissed.

“I shoved a tree trunk off of your crunchy lower half and carried your lifeless body out of those trees. I’d prefer not to revisit the episode.”

“Sorry,” Danny said, and meant it. “You leaving… I guess… it doesn’t really matter so much now.”

“Why’s that?” Carmilla asked, disdain edging her voice.

Not disdain for Danny, but a disdain for Carmilla’s own cowardice. Danny knew Carmilla had cringed every time Danny had winced, after the awful battle five years ago; every time Carmilla made her swallow meds or potions to suppress the pain, expectorants to cough up the blood; when Carm had set two breaks in her legs; when Carm had watched a Styrian healer snap Danny’s torso into place while Danny screamed and writhed and clamped down on a washcloth so hard green fibers got stuck in the crevices behind her molars. Then Danny had hallucinated Laura, and Laf and Perry and Kirsch, and woke from her spell to find Carmilla with bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks, fingers latched to her own. Danny remembered her eyes fluttering open, her voice rough as bark, thirsty, and Carmilla had told her she’d been comatose for three weeks.

Danny was able to rasp out an inquiry as to whether the vampire had fed recently, but Carmilla refrained from answering and never left her bedside. Danny hadn’t been able to walk. Not at first. Carmilla had helped her, coached her, had stayed through the worst of it.

Carmilla had played caregiver to her invalid of a companion, nursing Danny back from Death’s brink with a distant affection that only a self-proclaimed enemy could pull off without it becoming insufferable.

Yet Carmilla herself had gotten through the battle scratchless. Bruiseless. At least on the outside. But every time Danny begged for death to take her, every time she woke trembling and stricken, it was like Danny dug her stake a little deeper into the squirmy crimson of Carmilla’s heart. If Carmilla even had a heart. Danny knew, after the nightwalker had fled, after she’d left Danny to the final stages of recovery (alone), that Carmilla didn’t fear the injuries. She feared Danny wouldn’t be able to withstand another recovery as intense as the last, no matter how many immortal bloodcells luged through her veins. Carmilla feared Danny’s fragility, her impermanence, her death. So Carmilla fled and, Danny thought, probably tried to forget her.

But Carmilla didn’t forget her.

The vampire was here. Back at Silas. On her campus, in her class. Back with Danny.

“Why doesn’t it matter now?” Carmilla asked again.

“Because you came back,” Danny answered. Danny grabbed Carm’s hand, clammy and chilled as a snake’s liver.

But the vampire’s fingers were still dainty as papier-mâché, an aristocrat’s hands. Danny’s own were sandpaper. Perpetually warm, sweating with a build up of dead skin and marred with abrasions.

“Even though it scared the shit out of you, you came back. You always come back. For all of your posturing, you’re fairly… dependable.”

“I’m just waiting for the day that you’re not here to greet me when I return,” Carmilla murmured. “I don’t think…”

Carmilla curled her fingers over Danny’s palm. Nails shellacked with black paint bit into the flesh.

“Daniele,” Carmilla looked up, then stole the glasses from Danny’s face. She twisted the clip at the base of Danny’s neck, releasing her hair. Carmilla almost smiled. “There you are.”

“I’m always here,” Danny promised. “It’s not like I can go anywhere.”

“You don’t understand,” Carmilla insisted.

“Then tell me. You came back to help me, didn’t you? You felt it rising, just like I did.”

“Of course I—but Danny, you… you know that Elle wounded me. And Laura,” Carmilla shut her eyes. The grip on Danny’s hand tightened painfully. “She brought me to my knees.”

“I know,” Danny answered quietly.

“I came back because I didn’t want you to go without… I… I have to at least _try_ , Danny. If Laura taught me anything, it was that you have to try even when you’re scared as hell.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny asked.

“Of course I felt the stirrings,” Carmilla said. “Half-way across the world, and I felt the ripples of apocalypse. This isn’t some jackalope infestation, or a rogue banshee, or even your run-of-the-mill demonic possession. It’s Laphilformes. We dampened the light, all those years ago, but we didn’t extinguish it.”

“I’m here,” Danny insisted. “We’ll put it out for good this time.”

“And if it kills you?” Carmilla asked, cutting. “If it swallows you whole or rips you to pieces, what am I supposed to do then? Elle wounded me and Laura crippled me but Daniele, Danny…”

The lights in the lecture theatre flickered. Off and on, bright then night. Danny’s vision went soft around the edges. Her lips felt numb. And her usually warm right hand was freezing. Carmilla leached her heat, pulled her closer with another dead hand. Carm’s pale, delicate thumb ran against Danny’s freckled cheek; the vampire’s index finger traced the shell of an ear peaked into a point of cartilage.

Danny had witnessed the comingling of love and terror before, but never so near. Never close enough that her fallible immortality sang with it.

“You always said you were going to kill me. And I think… losing you might just do it,” Carmilla confessed. “Third time’s a charm, Gingersnap.”

“Don’t—” Danny hissed, hand flying to cover Carmilla’s own at her cheek. She dropped her forehead toward the vampire’s, and paid no attention to the lights dying overhead. “Don’t you dare give up, not now. We’ve got a good thing going, okay? You’re moody and melodramatic and an immortal pain in my immortal ass, but you’re my… you’re my best friend.”

Carmilla didn’t speak. She didn’t move. Danny almost started shaking.

“This is going to be just like every other time,” Danny continued. “Something stupid is going to attack our campus. They’re gonna rain hell for a couple’a days, or weeks, until we can figure out how to stop them. You’re definitely not dying this time so stop talking like you are. We’re _fighting_. That’s what we do. We’re the good guys, and it’s what we _do_.”

“That’s what _you_ do. I’m just along for the ride.”

“No,” Danny insisted. “After all the times you’ve helped me, that you’ve saved me, you can’t say that anymore. I know the last time was scary—”

“You were _dead_ , Danny—”

“But I wasn’t! I’m not. I’m right here,” Danny removed their hands from her cheek and pulled Carmilla into a lung-crushing embrace. “Do you feel this? I’m here, okay?” Danny’s fingers scratched along black lace, dug into the concave under a shoulder blade. “I’m right here.”

“The difference between every other time and this one?” Carmilla said into her neck, so muffled Danny could barely hear it.

“Yeah?” Danny asked.

“Is that I almost lost you last time. The only person I’ve got left. My… friend, and I almost lost you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. We both know I can’t.”

“But you _can_ , you stubborn ass. Not like me.”

“But I won’t,” Danny insisted. “I refuse to die unless it’s absolutely necessary, until it’s time. It would only justify your moping, which you know I hate.”

Danny released her and swiped a tear before it could fall. Carmilla did the same. Danny and Carmilla never cried over each other. Mourn and grieve, maybe, but never cried.

“But we do have work to do,” Danny said, popping up from her seat on the desk. The single light still illuminating the theatre shined near the podium, set to go off on some strange timer. Silas had instituted new energy conservation mandates a hundred and fifty years ago, which explained the motion-sensitive light panels.

So Danny and Carmilla stood in an eerie Silas spotlight, surrounded by darkness.

“Are you ready?” Danny asked. “I don’t think the text is in Sumerian this time, but I sure as hell can’t read it.”

“Am I ever ready for your sparring sessions and tedious supernatural research?” Carmilla droned.

“I usually have to drag you, kicking and screaming.”

“Well, I don’t want to get your hopes up or anything,” Carmilla began, sliding off the desk. Her shoulders slumped back into her default position of disaffectedness. “But I did bring you pie from the diner on fifth street.”

“No way, Dead Girl!” Danny stopped dead and gasped.

“What?” Carmilla asked warily, a skeptical eyebrow attempting an escape by crawling over her forehead.

“Damn, you really think I’m gonna die if you brought me pie.”

Carmilla rammed Danny’s shoulder as they climbed the stairs.

“I mean, I normally have to beg you.”

“I like it when you beg for help,” Carmilla snarked. “It’s certainly amusing.”

“Hah, only because it hardly ever happens.”

“It happens more than you think.”

“Yeah, probably about as often as when you play nursemaid,” Danny parried.

“Touché,” Carmilla said.

Danny turned down the hall, Carmilla falling into step beside her. Carmilla knew her way to Danny’s place. Their place. Well, Danny’s place, but… Carmilla was always welcome. It was the vampire’s place, no matter how vehemently the bloodsucker denied it. It’s why Carmilla didn’t need any prompting, needed no directing. She anticipated Danny’s turns because they were her turns, too. Fell into the familiarity, because it was recurrent enough to be familiar.

Danny once heard a professor say that you can’t go home again. Bullshit. Home’s waiting for you. It’s where your heart is.

Danny was always waiting on Carmilla. And Carmilla, in a way, waited on Danny.

“I missed you, you know,” Danny said.

“Good.”

“Did you miss me?”

“No,” Carmilla huffed.

“Liar.”

“Softy.”

“Have we had this conversation before?” Danny questioned.

“Once upon a time, I’m sure,” Carmilla answered, following Danny back to her place. “These things sometimes repeat themselves, but remarkably few variables change.”

 

* * *

 

 

_Two months later_

 

“This can’t be it,” Carmilla protested for the thousandth time.

“Carmilla, stop being so dramatic. This is what I signed up for,” Danny said, drawing the ceremonial knife (one of many readily available on campus) over her thigh. “If you want to be helpful, you could go get me pie.”

It had taken three weeks for Carmilla to get to that damned looking glass, the Mirror of Revelation. Once Carm acquired it, she’d had to trek her way back from Nepal to Styria, still half-frozen and grumbling all the while. Then Danny had the gall to greet her with: “’Sup, Vampsicle?”, at which Carmilla threw the mirror at her and poofed away in a broody onyx column of smoke.

The immortal pair prepped in Danny’s cabin at the far west end of the campus boundaries. They were surrounded by ashy white birches and protected from discovery by a charm, gifted to Danny from Carmilla upon her permanent move to the wood.

(“It’s just a glimmer,” Carmilla said, hanging the intricately woven ornament on the lowest hanging branch of the glade. “But it’ll keep out any nosy Zetas looking for a party house. Or lackwits hoping for a romantic rendezvous. Or Werecreatures. Whatever.”)

Danny had discovered the shack in her third decade at Silas and made the best out of her modest accommodations.

The layout was plain, utilitarian, a single open room with a loft above and a floor-length partition to separate the living area from the bath. The far wall contained an old wood-burning fireplace to combat chilly Styrian winters, but Danny had renovated the kitchen and bathroom with her own know-how and several quarts worth of elbow grease. She’d used her second decade at Silas to enroll in plenty of engineering and carpentry electives, and had strong-armed Carmilla into toting an overlarge clawfoot bathtub into the vacant corner after Carm had crossed the threshold on one of her frequent visits and deemed the place, ‘slightly more habitable than a dung heap’.

(“It’d be better if I had modern plumbing,” Danny said.

“God, I don’t miss that aspect of eighteenth century living. Though you could do with another couple hundred square feet.”

“I could work on a loft, I guess. That way you’d have proper place to crash. You know, since you’re around so much.”

“Don’t go through all that trouble on my account, Gingersnap. Not when your plumbing situation is this dire.”

“I just need to update it.”

“What you need is a full-scale renovation.”

“I’ve got a sink I’m installing, and a tub I found outside of the biology lab.”

Carmilla eyed her warily. “Were there stains in it?”

“I used a lot of bleach.”

“Well, if you’re okay with bathing in potential toxins, who am I to stop you?”

“So you’ll help me install it?”

Carmilla glared. “I’m sorry… what?”

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” Danny said, patting her shoulder knowingly. “Just help me move it and all is forgiven.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Carmilla said, getting a grip on the lip of the tub.

“Not if I kill you first, Dead Girl.”

Danny had the sink, tub, and toilet installed and fully functioning within two weeks. Then she started on Carmilla’s loft.)

So here they sat, fire burning, Mr. Coffee pot half empty, a glass of blood half full, an enchanted Zeta trident-cum-harpoon propped against the wall and surrounded by a half circle of electrical wiring and enchanted candles.

Another thing Danny had learned in her years at Silas: magic and science were two sides of the same coin.

“I’m saying, it doesn’t have to be you,” Carmilla grit, cheek twitching involuntarily as Danny drew the knife over the rounded top of her kneecap. Liquid silver pooled and bubbled and dripped, blots smaller than tears staining the carpet.

“Of course it does,” Danny argued. “We saw the reflection in the mirror _and_ heard the prophecy: _Come wounded, bleeding, in the dark / armed with sacrificial heart / die you must, and play your part / if you wish to kill the shark._ ”

“You’re slicing yourself up at the behest of some specter’s nursery rhyme.”

“I’m doing what it takes to kill the freaky fish lurking below the Lustig. You did the same thing, so I don’t know what you’re griping about.”

“Since when am I your role model?” Carmilla rounded on her and snatched the knife from her hand. “Meanwhile, you’re determined to attend snack time with some unholy demon, just so you can shoot that Zeta toy down its throat? Do you realize how poor a plan this is?”

“About as poor as showing up with a sword that consumes your life force, but hey, you’ve lived longer, I guess that makes you judge and jury,” Danny snapped.

“I survived when I shouldn’t have,” Carmilla rebutted. “We both know it’s not going to work like that this time,” Carmilla crossed to Danny’s hand-made medicine cabinet and accidentally yanked the mirror off its hinges. “Fuck.”

“This time, _this time_ , you keep saying that,” Danny placed a handkerchief over the cut on her knee and blotted the ooze. “I honestly don’t get what makes ‘this time’ any different from every other time!”

...

...

...

“I didn’t think I’d lose you every other time,” Carmilla mumbled, kneeling at the foot of the armchair between Danny’s bent legs. She wiped the blood away from the superficial cut with Danny’s handkerchief. A bandage materialized in her hand and she placed it, soft as stardust, against Danny’s knee.

“I didn’t… I didn’t have five years of separation to know how much I missed your foolhardy righteousness and light blue eyes and idiotic crusades and damned, selfless sincerity,” Carmilla spoke to her knee. “I wasn’t in love with you every other time.”

Danny squirmed back in the armchair, thoughts racing between oiling the harpoon release-catch and Carmilla; banking the fire and closing up the cabin and Carmilla; finally dying and saving and achieving and Carmilla; a weird, has-it-really-come-to-this? kind of emotional extortion and Carmilla.

Elvira.

Carm.

Dead Girl.

Her best friend.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to do it,” Danny scoffed lightly, trying to redirect the conversation to shallower waters. Lake. Pond. Babbling brook. Not this… ocean of codependency they’d somehow come to drown in.

“No, I’m not. I don’t say things I don’t mean. I should hope you know me better than that.”

“I know you well enough to recognize a last-ditch effort.”

Carmilla surged forward and pressed her lips against Danny’s. Danny felt hands in her hair, tugging, clawing at her scalp.

She smirked into a desperate kiss.

_Last-ditch effort._

Danny wrestled pale wrists away but her lips lingered, smothering an eleventh-hour exchange into something a bit more genuine. Something softer, kinder, something that had developed over decades of companionship. She brought her hand up to Carmilla’s chin and pressed against her cheek with broken-knuckled fingers, brushed against cool lips with her tongue.

“Thank you,” she murmured into Carmilla’s mouth. “Hey, Dead Girl, lemme breathe, okay?” Danny pulled away and Carmilla didn’t follow. Instead the vampire moved her hands to the soft part at the backs of Danny’s knees, let her head loll forward into Danny’s lap. She didn’t sob and her breath didn’t hitch, but Danny threaded fingers through wavy black hair and stroked until Carmilla stopped fidgeting.

“I love you too, and I do believe you love me,” Danny mumbled. “But do I think you’re _in_ love with me? No,” Danny smiled sadness, propped her temple on her fisted left hand, her right still working tight circles into Carmilla’s head.

“You’re wrong,” Carmilla argued, petulant as a night-owl woken at daybreak.

“No, I’m just a realist. Empirical, and safe. I’d love to be passionate and poetic and grand, and I'd like to believe we were 'destined' to love, by fate or circumstance but… that’s never been me. That’s you and your tragic romances, not my practicality. I do appreciate that about you, though. It's why everyone falls for you even though you're intolerable.”

“I’m in love with you, you overgrown imbecile.”

“Oh, are those the sweet nothings I’ve been waiting for?” Danny teased. She listened to the wind whistle through the crack at her window. Flexed her sock-covered toes and registered the subterranean vibrations of a rising monster.

Felt the weight of a wretched soul, lounging in her lap.

“We’ve come a long way from, ‘I don’t hate you’,” Danny said.

“What do you want me to do?” Carmilla tilted her head upward. “Tell me what you want me to say, so you’ll believe me. So you won’t go through with this senseless plan.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” Danny said, sliding down to the floor. She put her arm around Carm’s shoulders and tucked dark hair that smelled of menthols and snow beneath her chin.

“Let’s look at this logically: Laphilformes rises at midnight," Danny explained. "It will take Silas, and everything with it, and then, who knows? The rest of Styria goes next, and then the world. I can’t run, because I’ll die as soon as I step off the grounds. I can do nothing, and wait for it to take me, but then it will take everyone else along with it. Or I can slice-and-dice a bit more of my body, perform the protection ritual, and have a pretty good shot at filleting that over-sized guppy once and for all.”

“And martyr yourself," Carmilla murmured. "The Red Knight. I know that’s all you’ve ever wanted.”

“It might surprise you," Danny said, eyes shining. "The things I want.”

 

 +++++++++++++++++++++

 

They fucked each other that afternoon on the quilt-covered bed in Danny’s cabin. They also loved each other, a lot more than they ever dreamed they would. Although, their love had never been dream-like. They were too old and too damaged for such simplicity; they just learned to love better through the nightmares.

The harvest moon rose and shone orange through a dusty window, casting sobering shadows of crossed squares over Danny’s naked back. Danny retrieved the knife to mark herself and handed it over to Carmilla with a nod. Carmilla pressed the blade down her spine and held Danny still as she etched the pattern. Carmilla kissed her shoulder and split her skin and didn’t cry for her. Danny didn’t cry when Carmilla crushed the hilt in her hand, not when rubies and sapphires slipped between Carm’s fingers and clattered against the floorboards in a jeweled cascade.

Danny didn’t cry from the pain of the knife. She didn’t cry because she was about to die. She didn’t cry because she felt herself falling, falling and slamming into an upturned spear that rent her heart from her chest and turned her blood the color of merlot once more.

She cried because she was leaving, and, after wasted centuries, she was finally falling in love.

 

* * *

 

 

Danny groaned.

Everything was light and it hurt. _Everything hurt_.

There wasn’t much to remember besides agony and terror.

Agony, from when she left her cabin.

Agony, kissing Carmilla goodbye.

Agony, fingernails pulled backwards and wrenched from their beds as she clawed against the sheer walls of the pit.

Agony, the lines on her back seared and charred as she shuffled underneath the Arch of Ancients in the Lustig, activating the protective enchantment.

Then terror, watching the behemoth stir and rise, exhaling the moist breath of decomposing skeletons and rancid, moldy flesh.

Terror, as the dagger she’d used to mark herself fell away and she scrambled for it, Laphilformes hot on her heels.

And then momentary annoyance, because that damned vamp went crappily heroic on her after she promised she wouldn’t, and essentially bought her the time she needed to jury-rig that harpoon into properly functioning.

(“Look here, you steroid-pumping tadpole, Gingersnaps aren’t fish food. So back the fuck off!”)

Then back to terror, as the light brightened to supernova and the beast closed distance and Danny felt herself falling, further into the pit or down a sweltering gullet or through the centuries. Laura held her hand and Kirsch helped her shoulder the harpoon. They’d told her ‘good job’, and, ‘see you soon’. At least, Danny thought they had. She couldn’t rightly remember.

Terror: praying, hoping this would work. Danny pulled the trigger and the harpooned trident with a bewitched dagger duct-taped to its middle point sailed into the heart of the light.

And then agony again. Spine-grinding, muscle-shredding, eyeball-juicing anguish.

Blinding light into disorienting darkness.

(“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You’ve done such a good job, Danny.”

“Laura, I—”

“It’s alright. It’s good to see you. Tell Carm I miss her, m’k?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re ready for you. Just so you know.”

“You mean—”

“Yep. And Danny, can I ask you a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Try and bring Carm with you. It’s time; she’s tired of doing it, and I don’t think she could make it on her own again. I’d really appreciate it.”

“She won’t come easily, you know.”

“Then drag her.”

“Kicking and screaming?”

“It’s never so bad as all that. You've always seen her moods as worse than they are.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Danny promised.)

Danny groaned again.

Something cool trickled down her throat and she coughed. Her ribs protested and her diaphragm lurched and her head felt like it’d gone through the top cycle of a blender with extra-sharp blades. Her back tingled with needle pricks and tears slipped out of her eye creases.

“Gingersnap?” she heard, soft against her ear. “Daniele, Danny, are you sure you’re ready to be conscious?”

Danny released a sound that might have been a laugh. It could’ve been a sob, too, but her upturned lip suggested the former.

“Well,” Danny said, more breath than word. “That was a kick—”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I never knew daylight could be so violent. A revelation in the light of day.

“Chug—chug—chug—chug—CHUG!!!!”

“Aaaaaaaand I think that’s quite enough of that, c’mon guys.” Adeline snatched the can from Carlos’s gloved hand and tossed it over her shoulder. It hit the pile of bottles and discarded booze containers with a hollow _tink_ , then rolled into the overgrown crabgrass at the edge of the clearing.

“No fair, Addy!”

“Yeah, we’re not trying to spoil your fun,” Carlos sat back against the stump and threw his head against Taylor’s knee. The sophomore Summer Soc Sister ran painted purple nails through his dark hair and shook her head, grinning conspiratorially at the red head across the fire.

“I think she’s just trying to make sure you can remain mobile at the end of the night,” Taylor said. “I’m sure she doesn’t wanna help carry your fat ass again.”

“’m fine,” Carlos protested.

“This is Silas, Carlos,” Addy warned. “You never know when you might need to run.”

“Shit, it’s end of term. The only thing I’m running from is final grades posted on the Portal.”

“Besides,” Andrew added, “We’ve got our guardian to take care of us.”

“What?” Taylor asked.

Andrew grinned, then hopped out of the lawn chair and chucked another bundle of broken sticks into the fire pit. Roasted bits of elm and oak floated upwards into the sparkling night. The bonfire hurled galumphing shadows onto the trunks of the white birches at the edge of the forest, a semicircle of silhouetted deformations. Everything seemed more terrible and distorted in the frigid atmosphere after the demonic rising at midterms. Like several removes from the Real. Plato’s Cave, where the light remained intimidating and frightening.

The group huddled closer unconsciously. No matter the century, ghost stories by fireside on inky, moonless nights forever held a titillating and uncanny appeal.

A separate shadow, stealthy as a sniper, fell upon the group before anyone noticed.

“Yes, Mr. McGrath,” the shadow purred. “A bard of substandard talent like yourself should be able to keep these dolts relatively entertained.”

“Huh?” Andrew asked. “What’s a bard?”

Carmilla crossed one leg over the other and melted onto the felled tree trunk, taking her seat beside Addy.

“Tell your story, Zeta-zombie,” Carmilla clarified.

“Look here, Arsenic and Old Lace—”

“Children, please, or do I need to send you to your respective corners?” Addy asked.

“So any way, the guardian,” Andrew started, turning to the study group from the architecture class. “—she’s been here for centuries.”

“How do you know it’s a she?” Jennifer asked. “Is she hot?”

“And is she available?” Carlos joked.

“You’ll be available soon if you don’t watch yourself,” Taylor chided, knocking Carlos over the head.

“I think I’ve heard this one before,” Carmilla added. Heads snapped quickly towards her person, unaccustomed to her conversational participation. “I heard she’s covered in warts from head to toe.”

“She’s not a witch,” Andrew corrected. “Unlike some people here—”

“Okay, back on track, guys,” Addy guided them gently.

“Whatever. So, the guardian, she wasn’t always a guardian, you know? But hundreds of years ago, some weird shit went down over by the Lustig building.”

“The Lustig? You mean where the sink hole opened up over fall break?”

“Exactly.”

“It wasn’t a sink hole. It was a demon.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Holy crap.”

“Right?”

“There were rumors of like, mutinous fungi and on-campus civil wars. My dad even said there were vampires,” Andrew added.

“Bro, no way!”

“Totally, I’m not making this up!” Andrew continued. “And then there was like, some administration problems or something. But then people died, and all of a sudden, this statue shows up in the middle of the fountain outside of the architecture pavilion. You’ve seen it, haven’t you guys?”

“You mean the one that looks like Addy?” Jennifer asked.

“What? It doesn’t look anything like Addy,” Andrew argued. “I’ve never seen Addy with anything other than a knitting needle in her hand. She could hardly hold a long bow.”

“Guilty, I’m afraid,” Addy shrugged.

Carmilla snorted and rolled her eyes.

“What, you got something to add, Eyeliner?” Andrew asked.

“You have no inclination toward dramatic flair,” Carmilla drawled.

“You didn’t even let me get to the part about the guardian’s giant black cat! She’s got this pet, you see—”

“PET?!” Carmilla snapped, and the fireside group all turned in the direction of a seething Carmilla and a guffawing Addy. “That is NOT how it goes. This is the worst retelling of a legend I’ve ever heard. It’s… sacrilege.”

“Do you know the story?” Andrew asked. “Think you could do better?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then go ahead,” Andrew waved with a buzzed flourish. “We’re not going anywhere.”

Carmilla pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, tapped the box against the heel of her hand and withdrew a stick, placed it between her lips. She patted at the pockets of her jacket, shifted her leg straight so that she could feel for the outline of a lighter in her back pockets.

“You’re wearing leather, I doubt it’s back there,” Addy said, and pulled a packet of matches from her seasonal tote. She struck a match with neat precision and cupped the flame in her overlarge hands. The fire reflected in the lenses of her glasses and danced against the blue.

“Thanks, teach,” Carmilla said around the cigarette, and inhaled slowly.

“Meanwhile, the rest of us have aged a century,” Jennifer spoke up. “So if you two could stop flirting, maybe then Carm would get on with it.”

Addy and Carmilla spoke over each other:

“We’re not flirting.”

“You look pretty good for one-hundred and twenty.”

…

…

…

“Well, like our vociferous Zeta brother so— _poetically_ —recounted, there is, and has been for quite some time, a ‘protector’ of Silas,” Carmilla began.

The group settled fully now, eyes shifting from discarded beer cans at the wood’s edge toward their pale, black-clad classmate. Eyes, lips, faces, and undivided attentions, always eagerly awaiting Carmilla’s next word.

Addy wasn’t immune to the vampiric thrall.

“Our story begins just after the turn of the second millennium, then add a decade and a handful more years. In picturesque Styria, where nothing—”

“—not even the Homecoming goat sacrifice—” Addy added with a melancholic smile.

“—disturbed the pursuit of knowledge,” Carmilla continued.

“Yeah, sure,” Jennifer said. “Totally not flirting.”

“Jen, shut up,” Taylor this time. “Sorry for interrupting, Carm.”

“It’s fine,” Carmilla said, taking a long drag from her cigarette. She exhaled through both nostrils and puffed again into the chill. “And it all started, like so many legends do, with a beautiful girl. A beautiful girl who… who wanted nothing more than to make a difference. To affect some change.” Carmilla paused, fingering the charred end of paper and tobacco. “But that’s a very different story. More of a prologue, to this tale,” Carmilla continued, grinning in spite of herself.

Adeline placed her hand on Carmilla’s back.

“Silas, the habitat of all things abnormal, of magic and death and wonder and dread. This ground is holy, its origins and stories lost to time and the winners of history, its soul teased apart and haphazardly sewn back together, all for what? For greedy humanity to draw lines over ground that will only be erased at the next war, over the next uprising.

"Silas isn’t just a place. It _lives_. And so it said, _enough_. To hell with humanity and its covetous foolishness. We won’t suffocate. Instead, we fight. We’ll retaliate. Thus the breeding ground was born, for werewolves and golems and sorcerers and ogres, for haunted library catalogs, for faerie groundskeepers with an axe to grind, for vats of cannibalistic lunches at the caf dolled out to students while they were none the wiser, while they retained their euphoric ignorance. Until one day a monster poked its head too high above ground, interfered with one too many lives, and the students fought back.

“The c-casualties,” Carmilla stuttered, took another drag. “—overwhelming. Silas lost more students that day than any other in its history. The memorials still stand for the lost, though today… today they’re passed by with barely a glance.”

Addy moved closer to Carmilla, tightened her grip on the hem of her shirt.

“After the battle, Silas didn’t stir for a while. It was hard-fought on both sides, but it was only a battle. Not the war. Silas… Silas was patient. It reveled in its permanence. Settings, geographies, they’re paradoxes. They can be changed and possessed and named and claimed by generations but they remain, they stay, because places are more permanent than people. People leave, mobility is their blessing. But places are static, and that is their curse. No matter how many times we rename a building or upturn the earth, it doesn’t _change_ anything. We can no more rip the soul from a place than we can bid Mother Nature keep calm. And we can’t command Silas. We never could. But we could fight.

“Well,” Carmilla smirked, and tossed her smoldering cigarette into the fire. “At least, someone could.”

The logs shifted and sparks flew skyward with blue flames, but no one interrupted.

“After the battle, there was evidence of… _stirrings_ , of Silas retaliation. A wayward poltergeist at the gym, a Minotaur loose near the paddocks beside the animal husbandry building. Few occurrences that ended in peril, not enough for the administration to notice. But it didn’t escalate further, because someone had been taking care of it. Someone behind the scenes. She’d been watching over Silas, some nights, and then every night, because she was too damn stubborn to get any sleep, worrying over this God forsaken place.

“It was almost… beautiful, in a way. Her care was so genuine, her worry and concern so heartfelt and fierce. It was her deepest desire to protect the ones she loved, and the battle only added fuel to those flames. Desire turned to need, such that sacrifice, for love of place, for love of people, became necessity. And so she gamboled about with her bow, striking down foe after foe until she realized she couldn’t leave, not while Silas needed her, not while she could do some good. Her own story, to affect her own type of change. God, was she strong.

“She turned herself six months after the battle. It’s so very easy, if you’re smart enough, if you’re brave enough. She sought out the heart of Silas, that fountain at the center of campus… and made a blood sacrifice. She ripped her skin apart and her blood bubbled to boiling, raced the color spectrum from red to shiniest silver. And with the metamorphosis, she tied herself to this place for eternity. She’ll live, as long as she can fight, but she may never leave. Silas’s guardian, until the last student on this campus is safe. Each of you, whether you know, or whether you even care, has a champion. A Red Knight with silver blood and eyes of clearest blue.”

Carmilla finished, and tilted her head up to the stars. Wistfulness and awe blanketed the group like a strange, comforting hypnosis, but the pricks of intrigue and curiosity won out in the end.

“Who was she?”

“No one knows for sure,” Carmilla answered vaguely.

“Bullshit, Carm!” Carlos said. “You seem to know tons more about it than Andrew over there.”

“Hey, cool it, bro. That’s just what my dad told me. Besides, she’s probably pulling all of that stuff out of her ass. ‘Red Knight with silver blood’, for fuck’s sake.”

“Seriously, what else do they say?” Jennifer asked.

“Some say she was in the Summer Society,” Carmilla answered, not deigning to lower her gaze from the sky. “Nah, I’ll bet she was a dork from the Alchemy Club.”

“Not if she’s that statue at the fountain. That chick looks fierce as hell,” Liam said.

“Well, there’s no accounting for taste,” Carmilla purred.

“Do you think she’s still here? Those weird rumblings stopped right after Halloween. And that missing junior? You know, the one that got taken at the Fall Festival mixer? She turned back up! Do you think this guardian lady had anything to do with it?” Taylor asked.

“Who knows?” Carmilla replied.

“I’ll bet it was her pet cat,” Addy finally chimed in.

“I’ll bet her pet cat has claws, and people would do well to remember that,” Carmilla bit back.

“Seriously, you two can just fess up now,” Carlos said. “It’s the end of the semester and grades have finally been submitted. If you’re dating, that’s great. But this bickering and denial is really wearing thin.”

“Yeah. My cousin dated the guy who taught his biology lab, so it’s not exactly _unheard_ of,” Jennifer said.

“We’re not dating,” Addy said.

“Right, what teach says,” Carmilla replied.

“But you had to fuck her at least once, right? You hardly ever came to class, Carm.” Andrew said.

…

…

…

“Dude, was that seriously necessary?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, Andy. That’s way out of line,” Taylor said.

“That’s a zero on the cool scale, bro,” Carlos commented.

“How crass,” Carmilla said. “What Gingersnap and I do is none of your business, okay stud muffin? Whatever it is,” Carmilla’s eyes scanned Addy’s athletic form, all bundled up and folded in. Like she was trying to make herself a little smaller. “—it’s certainly not fucking. So you can put those twisted little fantasies of yours to rest, alright?”

“But there is something going on between you two!” Andrew argued. “You never handed in a single assignment the whole semester!”

“Is that what you think?” Addy asked cautiously. “That Carmilla passed because we’re sleeping together?”

“Not all of us think that,” Liam said.

“And some of us _really_ hope that’s not the case,” Jennifer agreed with an enthusiastic nod.

“Look guys, there may have been some misinterpreted interactions, but Carm and I aren’t… we’re, uhm—well, we’ve actually known each other for a really long time.”

Carmilla turned to Addy and raised a skeptical brow, then gestured toward the group to let the TA finish.

“Like, for years.”

“So you grew up together?” Liam asked.

“In a way,” Addy answered.

“But she didn’t screw you to pass, right?” Jen asked.

“She never—” Addy caught Carmilla’s stare. “—she never screwed me. And she definitely didn’t pass.”

“Carm, you failed?!” Andrew asked.

Carmilla shrugged a shoulder and sprawled out on the grass. “I’ll just retake the next time the course comes up in the rotation.”

“It’s a prerequisite for half the courses in our major,” Taylor gaped.

“Yeah, well, architecture…” Carmilla waved it off. “I’ve been thinking of a change, anyway.”

“You’re changing your major?” Andrew asked, sardonic. “To what?”

“I’ve always enjoyed reading. Might give literature a shot. Give this one a break for a while,” Carmilla nudged Addy’s knee.

“Well, if that’s the case,” Jennifer said, and rocketed up to her feet. She crossed to the other side of the bonfire and plopped down beside Addy. “When we all get back from the break over the holidays, I’d love to buy you a coffee. Or a drink. Talk architecture! And, uh, knitting, I guess. Get to know you. Since you’re not my instructor any more. Conflict of interest and all that.”

“Oh, Jen, that’s really sweet,” Addy replied. “I’d… really like that but… I sort of have a policy where I don’t date students. As in, well, _any_ students.”

“What, seriously?”

“Yes, I… I’m older than I look. And you guys are just starting out. You’ve got your whole collegiate careers ahead of you! But if you’d ever want to grab coffee just as, you know, friends, that’d be lovely.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jennifer said, and tried for a smile. She failed. “Cool.”

“No, really Jen,” Addy said, and took her hand. “I’ve got a book on Neo-Baroquemodernism furnishings that I bet you’d really like.”

“You mean, a _book_ book?” Jen asked, wide-eyed.

“Of course, a book,” Addy replied, confused.

“Woah, teach, that’s some serious old school right there,” Liam said.

“I imagine scrolls and vellum would have their tongues lolling,” Carmilla deadpanned.

Addy hid a grin behind her hand.

“Well, if story time’s over, I’m calling it guys,” Andrew said. “Hand me the dirt pail, Carlos.”

Taylor helped Liam and Andrew heap dirt onto the flames. They doused it with water to put out the last of the smoky whisps. In the full dark over the Styrian wilderness, the stars shone like glitter spilled over a tablecloth.

“Wow, Carlos look!” Taylor shouted, and pointed skyward. “You can see Andromeda!”

“What?”

“No, _who_. She’s a constellation,” Taylor explained.

“Oh, cool.”

“She’s moved,” Carmilla whispered. “Danny, did you see—”

“Who’s Danny?” Andrew asked.

“No one. I… misspoke.”

“Hey, where’d Addy go? She’ll need help with her crutches,” Liam hollered, walking about blindly in the dark. “Clumsy thing like her will rebreak her ankle if she’s not careful.”

“I’ll go find her,” Carmilla offered. “Make sure she doesn’t fracture anything else. Although, if she goes bumbling about like an idiot all by her lonesome, I’m not sure she doesn’t deserve it.”

“Don’t let Jennifer hear you say that,” Taylor warned. “She’ll fight you for her.”

“And lose, unfortunately,” Carmilla answered, turning on her heel.

“Hey, Carm!”

“Yes?”

“Who was that girl, the one who turned into the protector?” Taylor asked. “Like, what was her name?”

Carmilla cast sharp eyes about in the dark, but her Red Knight had dematerialized.

What was the harm in letting a legend live?

“Daniele,” Carmilla answered. “Well, Danny. Danny Lawrence.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Here,” Danny said, about a week after their story time around the bonfire. “Merry Christmas.”

“I don’t know if you missed the memo, Xena, but we don’t usually do Christmas.”

The evergreen garland running the length of Danny’s cabin mantle was evidence to the contrary. As were the holly wreaths on the doors; the roaring wood fire burning in the stone hearth; the decorated fir tree in the corner; the snow in the glade outside, and the frost on the windows; the candles at the table, along with the wine, and the remains of a home-cooked dinner; plus the two less-than-lonely stockings dangling over the fire, ‘Danny’ and ‘Carmilla’ sewn in counted cross-stitch patterns on the bibs. Of course they didn’t ‘do’ Christmas. Or care. Or love. It just grew organically in spite of them.

"You're going soft in your old age," Carmilla quipped.

"Seriously? I didn't just willfully recount the daring tale of sacrifice of my once-sworn enemy to a pack of drunken college freshman. You've mellowed so much."

"I've got several hundred years on you. I'm bound to lapse into sentiment once every decade or so."

“Just open it, would you?” Danny griped.

Carmilla ripped into page 3A of the _Grimmerie_ , the Silas campus broadsheet Danny had used as substitute wrapping paper. She shredded through an article warning about the slyness of Christmas elves and the likelihood of chimney pixies nesting in wood-burning fireplaces. Carmilla ran a pointed nail through a Scotch-taped delivery box from Amazon.

“Nice wrapping job there, got your namesake and everything,” Carmilla said.

“Again, I can only use what’s on the grounds. Or get what I can have shipped to me, you ungrateful heathen,” Danny said. “The convenience store on campus hardly stocks tinsel and ribbons and sparkly wrapping paper.”

Carmilla opened the box and studied its contents. Nestled in a velveteen stand was a book, old and musty and thin, hard-backed, with a faded navy cover. The pages were rough-hewn, their thickness uneven, and the spine looked close to disintegration. She gingerly lifted the publication from the box and stared at the inlaid gold script on the cover.

“ _Gulliver’s Travels_ ,” Carmilla read lowly, flipping back the cover of the book with extreme care. “First…” Carmilla stuttered, glancing up at Danny. “First edition.”

“Here’s the real kicker,” Danny said, and lumbered down to sit cross-legged by the fire with Carmilla. “Turn to the back.”

Carmilla did so, handling the book with uncharacteristic gentleness.

“Don’t pay any attention to the list of names,” Danny said. “The only one that matters is at the top.”

There, on the back cover, fainter than an echo, was the loopy brown cursive spelling out _M. Karnstein_.

“Daniele—”

“I know, I’m awesome. It was _hell_ sorting through all of the bids online. And books are so rare now anyways, but I figured, if I’m gonna go for it, might as well go all the way, right? Thought I’d make the effort at being elaborately thoughtful for once in my existence.”

“How...” Carmilla continued, though the lump in her throat made talking increasingly difficult. “How did you… how did you _know_?”

“You were turned in 1698, right?”

Carmilla nodded.

“So what’s a poor vamp to do? The first twenty years it’s all festivals and hunts and feasts, but… well, I know I started leaning toward the philosophical after _my_ first twenty years of the whole—” Danny ran a hand through her hair, groped about for the proper phrase. “—immutable, Silas deity thing I had going on. And so maybe I leaned toward ethics, and morals, and the concept of corruption. I figured you would, too, and this was released about a quarter century after your turn. Just did a little detective work, is all.”

“You are so full of shit,” Carmilla said. She set the book aside and yanked the taller girl down to where she sprawled on the cabin floor. She took Danny’s face in her hands and kissed her soundly. “There’s no way you divined that merely from my nature and your apparently eidetic knowledge of literary release dates.”

Danny needed a moment to catch her breath before asking:

“But you do like it, right?”

Danny was so bad at composure, at pretending. Carmilla wondered how Danny'd kept up the charade as long as she had, with 'Adeline' and other aliases, because bits and pieces of the all-powerful Danny Lawrence were bound to break through whatever thin veneer the ginger giant had hastily constructed. Carmilla watched the hopefulness manifest in Danny's hovering posture, in her scrunched-together brows, in her daring, open face. When she was furious she was furious, and when she was smitten she was smitten. There was not an ounce of guile in Danny's skeleton. No subterfuge. Honest to a fault.

And Carmilla couldn't fathom a life lived as long as her own without some sort of mask, without a coping mechanism. It only made Danny more remarkable.

Carmilla chuckled and crawled to her knees. She placed a hand on Danny's warm thigh to hold her weight, another behind Danny's neck. She drew her in and kissed gratitude into her companion, kissed thankfulness and gratefulness for years of acceptance onto her lips, her teeth, her tongue.

"Does that answer your question?"

Carmilla smugly observed Danny's momentary disorientation, how her lips formed fluid, wordless shapes and her eyelids blinked themselves back to opening. How her cheeks flushed ruddy like autumn.

"You have to say you love me now," Danny mumbled.

It was Carmilla's turn to be disoriented.

"You have to say it. Now. Because I gave you a nice thing."

...

...

...

"In my day we sent thank-you cards."

"It's different now," Danny said softly, clutching at Carmilla's slim waistline. "I'm not about to go into battle. I'm not in any danger. Say you love me because you do, not because you're about to lose me, not because I'm the only one left. Say it because you mean it, not because you're trying to manipulate me."

"Do you really think I'd--"

"I know you. And yes, I do."

"I... can't you... don't you know, already?" Carmilla tried to draw closer for another kiss. She loved when Danny held her. Loved Danny's heat. Not that she'd ever tell her.

"I need to hear it. I don't care how loudly actions speak, Carm, I need the words. I need you to get over yourself and tell me. I need to know it's for real."

"Danny..."

"Please."

"Danny, Daniele," Carmilla's voice was trembly and small, like that night five years ago when she'd cried herself to sleep at Danny's bedside. Loved her, especially then, when she thought Danny would never come back.

Was that immature? To love a thing only when it wasn't around anymore? In her confusion Carmilla didn't feel centuries old and wise, but merely young and foolish. So much time wasted.

"I do love you," Carmilla intoned.

“Yeah?” Danny smiled. "You don't have to sound so happy about it."

"Don't get used to hearing it, Gingersnap. You'd best take what you can get."

Danny shifted on the floor and her smiled widened, pride and glee duking it out over the contours of her angular face.

To Carmilla, Danny's eyes grew dim but her smile shone brighter than Polaris. Light in the dark. And yet, equally as likely to snuff out the lighted life of a monster. Widening aperture. Highlights and shadows. Chiaroscuro. Gingersnap.

“I love you, too, Carmilla.”

Carmilla wiggled out of Danny's embrace.

“I’m about to pick you up and take you to bed.”

“I can walk on my own now, Dead Girl. My ankle’s not quite that tender anymore.”

“Then get over there. It’s not like we have all of eternity or anything.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Carm?” Danny asked a little while later, tangled up in sticky sheets and vampiric limbs.

“Huh?” Carmilla grunted, glancing over the top of her gift.

“There’s a reason I got you a present this year.”

“Does it have something to do with you finally bedding me after literal centuries? Because that’s sweet and all, but you’re hardly my sugar mama.”

“Carm, I’m serious,” Danny said, propping herself on an elbow. She hugged the sheet close over her chest and flung her red curtain of hair over a love-bruised shoulder.

Carmilla double-taked and saw that the light in Danny’s baby blues had faded just a touch. It wasn’t any type of melancholy or ennui that she was accustomed to seeing in her own muddy, undead eyes; no, Danny definitely looked happy, content even. But there was a lethargy there that dampened a once vibrant glow of sapphire; an undeniable fatigue associated with centuries of effort.

It frightened her.

“Yes, you’ve got my attention,” Carmilla said, closing her book and placing it on the nightstand. She rolled to her side and hitched a leg over Danny’s hip when Danny buried her head against her neck, planting little distracting kisses against the skin below her ear.

“You _have_ gone soft, Gingersnap.”

Danny disengaged and flopped down on her back, stared at the crossbeams overhead where she stored her lances and javelins. “Okay, I don’t want you to freak out.”

“Oh god, I got you pregnant.” Deadpan.

“I swear, I’m gonna kill y—uhm,” Danny hesitated, then shook her head. She brought her hands over her face and rubbed the pads of her fingers into her eye sockets, stalling.

“Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to get you a gift,” Danny tried again. “I wanted to make up for every Christmas we never spent together, because of fights, or… you traveling or me getting so caught up in Silas. I wanted to get you something nice for every birthday or anniversary we could have celebrated, but didn’t. If I’d had a little more time it could have been even more special, but like I said, I hardly do ‘romance’. And Silas resources...”

Danny just grunted her disapproval.

“The point, Daniele?” Carmilla asked.

“It’s just… I wanted you to have something nice for our last Christmas.”

Everything in the room was suddenly charged. Lightning bolt. Static shock. Voltages rocketing through a body.

Carmilla turned and sat up abruptly.

“What?” she asked, and she felt the betrayal leaking in, saturating the sheets pooled at her waist, dripping onto her legs.

“It’s time for me to go, Carm,” Danny said, fiddling with the hem of the sheets. “I did what I set out to do and it’s… I’m ready to go.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Carmilla asked, all trace of levity gone from her voice.

“When Laphilformes died? You remember the explosion? In the light?” Danny sat up and placed a hand on Carmilla’s lower back. She traced the lumps of porcelain vertebrae with a healed finger. “You’ll never guess who I saw there.”

Carmilla cradled her head in her hands and tried to breathe.

“She’s waiting for us, Carm. Waiting for you, I imagine.”

“D-Danny—”

“I’m tired of being so battered,” Danny pushed through. “And Laphilformes is dead. It’s gone. And you know what’s the best part? There’s been nothing since. Nothing. Six weeks and not a single savage creature with supernatural cravings has darkened the halls of Silas University. There’s never been a dry spell that lasted this long, and it makes me think I’m finished. We took out the Queen bee and the hive collapsed. And now, I’m ready to rest.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’d be really easy. I’d just, start walking down to that diner on fifth street.”

“And then what?” Carmilla hissed.

“And then I’d get to see my friends again,” Danny answered. “It’s time, Carmilla.”

Carmilla blinked and recoiled as the loneliness of blood-encrusted decades returned in revolting waves of dread. She hadn’t fed recently, but felt like hurling despite her empty stomach.

“I just wanted you to prepare yourself,” Danny whispered.

“Thanks for the heads up,” Carmilla snarled, throwing her feet over the side of the bed. She tossed the duvet from her form and began the search for discarded garments. “Have fun killing yourself.”

“Carmilla—”

“Don’t, Danny.”

“Carmilla, I don’t think you understand—”

“ _You_ said we had a good thing here,” Carmilla turned, and thrust an accusing pointer toward Danny. “I kept coming back for you, and now you’re _leaving_?” Carmilla choked, and she was sure it was on coagulated bits of blood, pouring down her nose and throat from a tight coffin prison.

“Carm—”

“I'm the manipulative one, huh beanpole? You forced that confession out of me knowing you were going to—”

“Carmilla—”

“Selfish, sanctimonious, fucking asshole—”

“Brobdingnagian!” Danny shouted, flinging her arms forward.

“What?”

“Brobdingnagian. The word,” Danny clarified, and slapped her forehead with the flat of her hand, crunching her bangs.

The syllables rushed out in awkward clumps over Danny’s articulators, agitated, like the fingers frantically running over her scalp. Carmilla had noticed Danny’s habit of fiddling with her hair whenever she got worried or nervous. She hated herself for recognizing the tick. Hated that she would _miss_ it, hated that she would pine for her scourge, her reluctant soul mate. Hated that she would lose Danny Lawrence.

“That’s what you called me and my sisters. Back at the very first fight,” Danny scrambled for explanation. “And I got so freaking pissed because I had to go look that word up, and then… _Gulliver’s Travels_.”

Carmilla yanked a black shirt overhead and fisted her hands at her sides. Then she reared back and kicked at the leg of the kitchen table. It splintered into bits and china clattered to the floor, shattering.

“WHAT THE FUCK, DANNY?!”

“I want you to come with me!” Danny yelled, lumbering up out of the bed.

She moved towards Carmilla and hobbled a little on her ankle. Carmilla watched her fight through the discomfort and reach toward the bed post for support.

Stubborn.

Asshole.

“That’s why I wanted to tell you, to ask you, if you were ready to come with me,” she continued. “I thought that… I mean, I love you. And if you were ready like I am, I thought we could go together.”

“Wait a second… you’re… you mean you want to—?”

“I’m just ready to go.”

“You keep saying that, but what you _mean_ , is that you’re ready to kill yourself,” Carmilla repeated, uncomprehending.

“Don’t you think it’s time?”

…

…

…

“What does it matter what I think? You’re gonna do what you’re gonna do,” Carmilla said.

“No,” Danny answered. “We both have to agree to go. I’m not leaving you.”

“Danny, you’re insane. You’re saying you love me enough to kill me. That’s Kool-aid drinker kind of talk, you know?”

“This coming from the woman who carved ritualistic Hieroglyphs into my back with a dagger moments after climax.”

“This is fucking ridiculous.”

“I know!” Danny laughed, slightly manic. “And aren’t you tired of it? Aren’t you ready for a little bit of… peace?”

Carmilla huffed and stared down at the broken gleam of china on the floor. She might have caught a glimpse of her reflection in the creamy shards, but she couldn’t tell for sure. The pieces were too tiny, too broken.

“How long have you been thinking about this?”

“I’ve long since made amends with this world. Tried to conceptualize what I think about the next,” Danny answered. “Hard not to ponder an afterlife when the top hit on your job description includes ‘mortal peril’.”

“But when did you decide you wanted to kill me?” Carmilla asked thickly.

“Oh, I’ve wanted to kill you since I first met you, Dead Girl.” A regretful smile.

Carmilla always thought of Danny as relatively level-headed. She’d refined so much of her brash humanity in the first few decades of combat. Had learned quickly that barreling in armed to the teeth but lacking a plan ended up going south more often than not. So for Danny to suggest something so outlandish, so twisted it bordered on the perverse… perhaps there was merit that wasn’t yet apparent?

“You want to kill me,” Carmilla said.

“Yes.”

“And you’re in love with me?”

“Correct. You asked me once, to stake you. I’m just… offering to do that again, I guess.”

Carmilla plodded to the nightstand and opened the drawer. She passed over the brass knuckles and poison darts, the arsenic pouch and sheathed dirk Danny kept within arm’s reach. Her hands trembled as her fingers clasped the unfinished wood, and she turned back to Danny, stake in hand.

“You really think we’ll see her again?” Carmilla whispered.

“Honestly?” Danny asked, brows pinched together like a sad terrier.

“No, tell me what I want to hear,” Carmilla paused, stared down at the stake and wondered how irritating splinters could be if lodged in a ventricle.

“I love you,” Danny reiterated, “And I think you get some very twisted satisfaction out of hearing me say it. I think… I think that if we do this, everything will be—just— _less_. I think Laura will be there, and Perry and Laf and Kirsch. I want to think we’ll all be together and it’ll be easier than this. Easier than existence. Easier than functioning in a world where everyone I love is dead.”

...

...

...

“… I’m afraid."

“I know.”

“You’re not afraid,” Carmilla said. “You’re not afraid of anything.”

“I’m afraid of what will happen to you if you stay,” Danny took the stake from Carmilla and tossed it to the opposite side of the mattress. “I’m afraid that you’ll never know how much you mean to people, not just to me, but to your friends, Carmilla. I had to learn to be your friend first, right?”

“…”

“And it’s not like we’re cutting anything short, you know?” Danny grinned, and chucked Carmilla’s downturned chin. “We have lived, God how we’ve lived! Hundreds of lives—they all kinda blur together and accomplishments become failures and love becomes death and somehow, we’re better able to see in the dark than the light. So I don’t feel like I’m selling out. I’ve done my job. I’ve lived my life. And I’ve loved living it, loved the people in it. Loved that I got to love you a little.”

“…”

“We don’t have to do this right now,” Danny amended. “I just wanted to tell you. Let you know what’s on the horizon. Let you know that… that I’m okay with just being a legend from here on out.”

“You’re a fair legend, as legends go,” Carmilla said.

“You are, too.”

“Please, I’m just the cat sidekick.”

“We have time for you to monologue your own great adventure to some students, you know,” Danny said. “You’ve got a shit ton of heroic vampire crap to explain.”

Danny threw her arm over Carmilla’s shoulders and pulled her down to the bed. They held each other for a while, but didn’t cry.

They never cried over each other.

Except for when they did.

“Can we go visit Laura first?” Carmilla asked. “Her… grave?”

“Definitely. She’d probably like fresher flowers and some cookies.” Feather-soft kiss to a forehead. “There’s really no rush.”

“But… by next Christmas? You said this would be the last.”

“Maybe,” Danny sighed. “Yeah, we need to cap it.”

“I know I’m supposed to feel like I want to go out and skydive, or snorkel the Great Barrier Reef or some shit, but I really just want to sleep all day.”

“So… the usual?”

“Basically,” Carmilla said, and snuggled closer to Danny. “But… it’d be better if you stayed with me.”

“I’m not one for lounging in bed all day, but… maybe just this time.”

 

* * *

 

 

Danny lay on the bed holding onto Carmilla and the wooden stake. She didn’t dare dream of a future. Danny Lawrence loved the death in her arms far too fiercely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little twisted Lawstein, yall. Sorry not sorry.


End file.
